Harnessing the Fear

Last Sunday we had recital of my private students. Haven't done one of these in a while, because I was down to about 4 students, and that doesn't make much of a recital. But now I have 9 altogether, and 7 of them performed. The youngest was a third grader who has been taking piano lessons for about a year and a half and the eldest was a retired Art teacher who has been playing since August. The recital was held in the living room of one student's family, and was, by all accounts, a huge success.

Even though I spend my work day teaching music to children in school, and coming home to teach yet some more music seems like something I would not want to do, I enjoy my private students very much. Working with them one-on-one is satisfying in a different way than is working with the groups I see every day in my regular job. It gives me a chance to try things that I end up using in class, and establish really long-term, growing relationships with budding musicians.

One of my students, a cellist who is now a junior in High School, has studied with me since the third grade. He has always liked to play cello, though he is a ballet dancer in his soul of souls and will pursue that as his career. It has been extremely gratifying to watch him grow and change, and see the changes in his playing over the years. This recital was the first he had been in for many years, and I was so proud to show him off as his playing has a maturity and spirit now that just emerged after a summer studying ballet with ABT in Detroit.

The retired Art teacher was very nervous about playing in a recital. But she positively glowed with joy after playing her two songs. For all but the one cellist, this was the first recital ever, and each of them came away with new self-confidence and a new level of ability, gained from intensive practice stemming from, among other things, fear of failure.

I am taking acting classes myself right now-something I have always wanted to do. Last Saturday, the day before the recital, our acting class had a showcase of the scenes we had worked on with partners for the last six weeks. It was the first time I have ever been on stage as an actor and, though it was a short scene, I felt my own jitters about doing this new thing. I had learned my lines completely and my partner and I had gone through the scene dozens if not scores of times. But it wasn't till we were on the stage, in the lights, speaking to each other as our characters that the real emotions of the scene emerged. It was a rush, no two ways about it, and all week I have been thinking about the connections between that kind of performance and music performance, and about how my own students felt in their premiers compared to how I felt in mine.

I know I have just begun to scratch the surface of the self discovery that acting can uncover. And I also know that my own students have now had a taste of the joy of playing music you love for a live, listening audience. My acting teacher, Hal, talks about the wringing fear of screwing up that motivates people to study and prepare, and it is this that I count on when scheduling a recital and preparing my students for it. I know that the performers will put in extra time on their instruments that they wouldn't do if the spectre of live performance did not loom before them.

But as a teacher I have to be careful not to put the pressure on too hard, because as much as that fear can motivate, it can also paralyze. Controlling the fear, and putting it to use, as the classmate who played Clarise from "The Silence of the Lambs" in class did (who is NOT afraid of coming face to face with Hannibal Lecter?) can result in wonderful performances from both musicians and actors. It also assures thorough preparation. I'm not sure I know the mechanics of harnessing fear for good. I do know that I try to let my students know that the most important thing is to preserve the integrity of their performance by keeping going. "The audience will not know that you made a mistake if you just keep going" is the mantra that beginning musicians must meditate upon in the final practices. I suppose it's that way in acting too. The other thing is to remind them (and myself!) that when they do make a mistake, they must remember that the mistake is only one tiny part of the whole performance and NOT the whole performance. The performance is not the "notes" but the music.

After the recital, and after this acting showcase, each of us, musician and actor, comes back to the study from a new plane of skill and experience. We are all ready to take on a new challenge, we have new insights and have LIVED through this trial by fire. Tempered with new resiliance, we move forward.